reader. writer.

Okay, seriously, after sharing a playful set of tips for choosing a major, I am ready to share some ideas on how to identify majors that might work for you (part one of two).

I am speaking here to students who aren’t sure and are still trying to get their bearings. If you already know exactly what you want to do in college and the rest of your life, what I’m going to say may not make much sense. 

For those of you still seeking, exploring majors as it is called, I would like to reflect on what a major is, or more importantly, what a major isn’t.

A major isn’t a job. A major isn’t a guaranteed path to employment. A major isn’t the only thing that will ever interest you for the rest of your life. 

Instead, a major is a topic that interests you right now and/or makes sense to you for a number of reasons, some practical and some unique to you. You get to choose which reasons you share with the public—line up the most practical ones ready to parade in front of well-meaning relatives and strangers who want to be sure you are on track to succeed. Which reminds me–I’m not going to try to define success, but instead gently hint that success in life has to be defined by you; it is not a one-size-fits-all goal.

Q. But what if I choose the wrong major?

A. That’s the fear, isn’t it? The pressure that is paralyzing. Once you find a major that works for you, you are more likely to complete your college degree, and more likely to complete within four years.

So maybe it would be helpful to unpack what would be a wrong major.

A wrong major is one that you are unhappy with, especially one that makes you so unhappy that you want to quit college or change major. 

That is a very real concern, both because attending college is an investment of time and money and because changing majors can slow you down in terms of progress to degree. But let’s come back to that.

The other reason a major might be “wrong,” and this reason seems to be most worrying, is a major that is somehow a waste of time/money. I get the impression that when people call something a bad choice in major, it’s because it didn’t land you a dream job after college. I assume this is one of the majors where people say in those (perhaps misleading) surveys in which people wish they majored in something else in college.

While I understand that no one wants to regret choices they make, the challenge is that when you are young, it is almost impossible to know what you will want later in life or what will make sense to you later. More than that, I don’t think you can get to that later moment in your life without working through these questions now. That is, knowing what you want out of life is a question you will be asking and answering many times in your lifetime, not just this one time in choosing a major. So my main piece of advice is to let yourself, your current self, off the hook for somehow knowing what is the right choice for you for a lifetime. I’m not sure there is such a thing, if I’m honest. Sure, sure, there may be recurring preferences, interests, hobbies, culturally-significant connections, blah blah blah… but none of that is the One Perfect Thing that you will always want to do forever and ever. 

Some people are certain that they want whichever major will give them the best chance of earning a lot of money after college. There are databases you can research to see the average salaries of people with certain majors, though that often blurs the part where they had to go on and get a graduate degree too. Or it ignores the fact that some people with the same degree earn very different salaries because of where they live and who they know, etc. So I’m going to stand by my earlier statement that a major isn’t a guarantee for a job. 

I know, I know. Some majors, such as engineering and accounting, set you up for well-paying jobs fairly directly, or so I hear. But let’s go back to that first reason why a major is a wrong major.

An engineering or accounting major may be the perfect fit for some students. That doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for every student. You can major in the most practical major that garners the approval of all the well-meaning people in your life, and you can be completely miserable. And… the odds are good that if you are miserable in those majors, you will probably be miserable in those jobs.

Q. But aren’t all jobs miserable?

A. Um. Wow, now that’s a different question, and I’m not quite sure what to say. I’ve had the experience of loving jobs and hating jobs, and sometimes those were the same jobs. I suppose that’s a good (if negatively-worded) question because there are some parallels between what it takes to find a career that works for you and what it takes to find a major that works for you. No job and no major are perfect, but some will work better for you. And yes, you are likely to find that more than one major could work for you, and more than one job could work for you. Your career path is not fate, not necessarily, though over time, one thing can start to lead to another in ways that make sense. I know, I know, it’s hard to be patient with this process, but the search can be rewarding if you keep at it, keep experimenting to figure out what works for you, as well as what is in your control and what is not.

Stay tuned for part two with tips for exploring majors.